Tamron 20-40mm Lens Review – Great for Landscapes and More!

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Hey everybody, Jay P. here from The Slanted Lens. We’re out in Monument Valley. It’s a place that filmmakers have been drawn to forever. John Ford shot here with John Wayne.

Just so many films have been made here. An Incredible place. A natural beauty probably unmatched in the West. And the perfect place to bring a 20-40 millimeter lens. Tamron’s new lens, f/2.8. And I think this is an excellent place. When you stand on John Ford’s point and just see the whole valley, this gives you a view, a 20 millimeter to be able to shoot that.

I was really curious about this 20-40mm. I mean 20 is wide. It gives me a nice wide view, which I love that. But then the 40 also gives me a little more of a normal view which allows me to shoot stitched panoramics. So I’m loving the fact that I’ve been able to shoot that. I’ve been shooting all morning this morning. I get the beautiful vistas, but I can also do some kind of normal flat perspective types of panos. So, I’ve been really impressed with this so far. I’ve been shooting away. We’ll just keep shooting today and see what we get.

This is one of Tamron’s newer lenses. It has the ability to plug it in and to adapt it. I do love the new grip which was really nice this morning, because it was super cold. I had gloves on and it allowed me to be able to use the lens really easily. A lot of fun. Let’s go out and shoot with the lens and we’ll check in as we go.

So the 20-40 millimeter lens has several things going for it. It’s an f/2.8 throughout. Which means it is a really good aperture that gives you a shallow depth of field and gives you great bokeh. It also is super lightweight. It’s built on that 67 millimeter kind of platform that everything Tamron has been making lately for Sony is doing. So it gives you a super lightweight lens. You can leave it on the camera. You can carry it with you. Because of the 20-40mm it does give you a wider view.

That 20mm is a pretty wide view. I’m shooting right now in Monument Valley, I’m shooting on the 20mm. So I see all three of the mitten buttes in the shot. But you can go into 40mm, which gives you more of a common, closer to a 50mm. Which is kind of more what you see with your eye. And that gives you a little flatter perspective.

So this has the VXD linear motor focus mechanism which makes it really fast. It worked really well with our Sony a7R V that we had here that we were testing. So that autofocus has proved to be very, very effective with the Sony cameras and worked extremely well on our test with it. The new autofocus on the a7R V is absolutely spectacular. And this lens functions completely seamlessly with it and does an excellent job. You can change, in the app, you can change it so you could do a linear focus. So it allows you to do a hand focus. It’s going to be much easier in video. But really, for me, I’m going to be using this on a gimbal using the autofocus on my Sony. And it’s going to work, those two are going to work very well together. We used it with the a7R V and the a7R V with that new autofocus worked really well. So that is a great application for me.

We’re here in this stretch of highway where they filmed the Forrest Gump running scene. And I think we’re about to get run over by a car. But that 20-40 millimeter lens is doing great. We get that wide perspective of the road going away from us.

So with the Tamron 20-40 millimeter, you’ve got a close focusing distance of 6.7 inches at 20 millimeters. So it just allows you to create forced perspective. I can get on these bolts here and get really close to them and have them right up large in the frame. But I can see all the way to the top of the tower.

Just a great perspective to be able to work with and to play with. And I love that with this. So that close focusing distance is really a fun thing to work with.

One application for this lens that I think is really interesting, and that is doing environmental portraits. I went into the Kingman Visitor Center and asked Matthew if I can take some pictures of him.

And you just have the ability to show so much context. I mean, I usually shoot a 35mm when I’m doing environmental portraits. And sometimes I want to be a little wider than that.

This just gives me a little tighter to go into a 40mm on his face. And a little wider to go into even to an extreme at 20mm to see more of the room. And it really worked out nice. I mean that’s a really nice application to be able to use this as an environmental portraiture lens.

So let me wrap this up. Who’s going to use this lens? Anyone with a video application if you’re going to use Gimbals, especially. People who want to do any kind of portrait, landscape, if you want anything to give you a wider view and a little tighter view.

It certainly works for landscape or architecture, I think at f/2.8 throughout with beautiful bokeh. This lens as a lightweight platform makes it a very easy lens to carry with you and just a great, really great application. Close focusing distance, lightweight, f/2.8. It’s just another great zoom in this series of really professional high end zooms from Tamron that allow you to get professional imagery.

I wasn’t sure about this platform, but I found that I enjoyed being able to reach out just a little bit with that 40 millimeter versus 17-28mm that just always kept me on the really wide end. This gave me a wider view like I can see all three of these buttes here. But it also gave me the ability to get in a little tighter. So a great platform from Tamron. I hope you enjoyed this review. Leave us some comments. I wish we’d gotten better sun. Man, I wish we’d gotten better sun. But you know what? You go out, you try, you get what you get. So keep those cameras rollin, keep on clickin’!